TWISTED SISTER To Reunite In 2026 For Worldwide Performances Celebrating 50th Anniversary
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Dust off your denim and leather and flex your devil horns: TWISTED SISTER is back — bigger, louder, and more unapologetic than ever. The band that gave the world "We're Not Gonna Take It" and "I Wanna Rock" has confirmed they will storm stages worldwide in 2026, celebrating their 50th anniversary.
While full details remain under wraps (because even metal legends love a good tease),founding guitarist and manager Jay Jay French couldn't contain his excitement about reaching a milestone that once seemed impossible:
"Beginning on February 2nd, 1976 in a little bar called The Turtleneck Inn in Hunter Mountain, NY, Dee Snider, Eddie Ojeda and I have called ourselves TWISTED SISTER and stood shoulder to shoulder for nearly five decades, through multiple personnel changes and thousands of performances," he said. "We are proud to celebrate a milestone that once felt unthinkable: a 50-year anniversary!! We have created a music and performance legacy that has and will continue to inspire millions of fans around the world. Twisted Forever, Forever Twisted!"
Lead guitarist Eddie Ojeda added: "Fifty years on, and TWISTED SISTER is still the soundtrack for every rebel with a reason and a reason to turn it up."
But it was frontman Dee Snider who really cranked the volume to 11 with his typically unfiltered announcement: "If you're lucky enough to be in a band that people still want to see after fifty years(!),how can you not answer the call? In 2026, TWISTED Fucking SISTER will hit stages around the world because WE STILL WANNA ROCK!!"
Let that sink in, SMFs. The band that gave us headbanging anthems, legendary MTV videos, and enough eyeliner to keep Max Factor in business, is returning to stages around the world.
For those keeping score at home, TWISTED SISTER last toured with drummer Mike Portnoy in 2016, following the tragic death of drummer A.J. Pero. But 50 years? That's cause for celebration. These guys have survived the club circuit grind of the '70s, MTV domination in the '80s, breakups, makeups, PMRC hearings (shoutout to Dee for that Senate testimony),and enough lineup changes to make SPINAL TAP sweat.
TWISTED SISTER will hit stages around the world in 2026, featuring the return of Joe "Seven" Franco on drums, a former member of TWISTED SISTER who last recorded and performed with the band in 1987 for the "Love Is For Suckers" album and tour. Playing bass will be Russell Pzütto, who has previously appeared in concert with TWISTED SISTER and has been a touring member of Dee Snider's solo projects.
Tour dates and details remain under wraps, tighter than your mom's jeans in the '80s. But if you're a betting person, start saving your pennies and preparing your vocal cords now.
Two and a half years ago, TWISTED SISTER staged a one-off reunion at the Metal Hall Of Fame in Agoura Hills, California.
In April 2024, Dee was asked by "The Hook Rocks!" podcast if he and the rest of TWISTED SISTER would consider coming back together for special performances. The singer said: "As a result of all the bands retiring and dying, the offers get bigger and bigger for the holdouts to come back. And we retired in 2016, I think it was. So we're on eight years now of not playing, with no intention of coming back. But — my father, he says, 'Everything before the word 'but' is bullshit — but at some point, you've gotta say, 'Well, how can I say no to that?'"
He continued: "Is it there yet? No. Is it getting close? Yeah. Is there talk amongst us, like, 'Well, in the event that the numbers do get there, and they sure as hell seem to be going in that direction, how are we gonna do this?' So there's a little bit of that conversation. And that's both physically how we're gonna do it and on a number of other levels. And that's a recent occurrence, that the conversation has gone from 'never' to 'in the event that they make as an offer we can't refuse, what's the plan?' And there's some very general discussion on that, involving personal trainers [laughs], diets, hair extensions. And that's the first time in eight years that the conversation has changed."
Snider added: "We're all friends, by the way. The surviving guys, we all talk and we're all friends and we love each other. And that was one of the great things that came out of getting back together the first time is that we managed to fix the friendships and be friends and that, to me, is really why I wanted to do it in the first place, getting back [together] last time… So, anyway, we'll see what happens."
On hand to be inducted into the Metal Hall Of Fame were Snider, French, Mendoza and Portnoy, who has played drums for TWISTED SISTER since the passing of former member Pero. Ojeda was absent from the event after contracting COVID-19; filling in for him was Keith Robert War.
The highlight of the ceremony — which also saw FOREIGNER singer Lou Gramm, NWOBHM heroes RAVEN, and guitarists Chris Impellitteri and Doug Aldrich honored — was TWISTED SISTER's highly charged three-song set consisting of the staples "You Can't Stop Rock 'N' Roll" and "Under The Blade", as well as the anthem "We're Not Gonna To Take It".
In 2016, TWISTED SISTER embarked on one final trek, titled "Forty And Fuck It", in celebration of its 40th anniversary. These shows featured the band's "core lineup" of Snider, French, Ojeda and Mendoza, along with Portnoy. The band's last-ever concert took place in November of that year — 20 months after the passing of Pero.
TWISTED SISTER's original run ended in the late '80s. After more than a decade, the band publicly reunited in November 2001 to top the bill of New York Steel, a hard-rock benefit concert to raise money for the New York Police And Fire Widows' And Children's Benefit Fund.
The surviving members of the classic lineup of TWISTED SISTER previously reunited virtually in March 2021 for a special episode of Mendoza's Internet TV show "22 Now". The hour-and-a-half-long program was a tribute to Pero, who died exactly six years earlier at the age of 55 while on tour with the band ADRENALINE MOB.
(Source: www.blabbermouth.net)
